The flap over President Barack Obama’s “you didn’t build that” gaffe -- playing endlessly in TV ads and sure to be a major theme of the Republican National Convention in late August -- is at once sillier and more significant than it seems.

It’s sillier because fair-minded observers -- including neutral fact-checking referees -- agree that the president’s words are shamelessly being taken out of context. For Romney to base so much of his campaign on bogus editing is lame.

Yet the uproar is significant because -- properly framed -- this election offers a stark choice between do-it-yourself libertarianism and Whig capitalism, between Ayn Rand and Warren Buffett.